Sebastian Vettel (P5, 10 pts): 7.5/10
Perhaps we should cut Sebastian Vettel some slack this weekend, as he was probably understandably distracted by the birth of his son just a couple of days before the Abu Dhabi weekend which made him late arriving at Yas Marina. That was probably a good thing as far as Vettel was concerned, as he was able to side step his scheduled media commitments that would have doubtless have insisted on raking over the glowing embers of Ferrari's implosion in Brazil. Perhaps a lack of sleep accounted for his mishap in Friday's morning practice session, but he was soon shrugging off any fatigue and giving a perfectly decent account of himself in the remaining sessions. Qualifying started with a rather embarrassing spin on the main straight before he even got his flying lap underway, but no real harm was done and it was business as usual as he made it through to Q3, where there was some controversy when Charles Leclerc blamed Vettel for being too slow on his outlap and preventing him from making a final run. Prior to this Vettel had made the unusually defensive decision of using soft tyres to make it to the final round, and while that choice should have given Vettel a faster start on Sunday against the medium-shod cars around him on the grid, this didn't actually end up proving to be the case and he was unable to improve on fourth position when the lights went out. Vettel's decision to make a second pit stop late in the race saw him drop behind Valtteri Bottas who was making his way from the back of the grid after serving an engine penalty, and the Ferrari driver also had to work hard to pass Alexander Albon in the final laps merely to finish in a slightly tepid fifth.
